DD is 17 and in Grade 12. As she approaches graduation, she's starting to plan for the future.She is starting to think about what items she needs for college and what parts of her life will be left behind.Today's conversation concerned her extensive - and still growing - collection of stuffed animals.

DD "I'll give most of them up -they're really just an indulgence."

Me - knowing how attached she is to them, and thinking to start things gently - "Why don't you start now? Just a half dozen or so?"

DD, in genuine horror "I can,t do that! They all have names and I can't break up couples! Rouge and Windrider are married and have a kid! I can't break up families!!"

Somehow, I think we still have a long way to go.

I know this was awhile ago, but maybe it'll help her feel better. I'm 30, married, and a mother of 5 1/2 month old twins. When I got married and moved out of Mu parents house, a laundry bag full of stuffed animals came with me, and I still have them! They're in the spare bedroom closet for now, but I just couldn't part with them!

DD is 17 and in Grade 12. As she approaches graduation, she's starting to plan for the future.She is starting to think about what items she needs for college and what parts of her life will be left behind.Today's conversation concerned her extensive - and still growing - collection of stuffed animals.

DD "I'll give most of them up -they're really just an indulgence."

Me - knowing how attached she is to them, and thinking to start things gently - "Why don't you start now? Just a half dozen or so?"

DD, in genuine horror "I can,t do that! They all have names and I can't break up couples! Rouge and Windrider are married and have a kid! I can't break up families!!"

Somehow, I think we still have a long way to go.

I know this was awhile ago, but maybe it'll help her feel better. I'm 30, married, and a mother of 5 1/2 month old twins. When I got married and moved out of Mu parents house, a laundry bag full of stuffed animals came with me, and I still have them! They're in the spare bedroom closet for now, but I just couldn't part with them!

I'm the same age as you and I also have a collection of stuffed animals. I do occasionally go through and donate some of them, but the rule is that once they hit the donation bin, Mr. Muse is not allowed to "make them talk" under pain of having an apartment taken over by stuffed animals-- because I'd feel bad about getting rid of them, and so, they'd have to stay.

DD is 17 and in Grade 12. As she approaches graduation, she's starting to plan for the future.She is starting to think about what items she needs for college and what parts of her life will be left behind.Today's conversation concerned her extensive - and still growing - collection of stuffed animals.

DD "I'll give most of them up -they're really just an indulgence."

Me - knowing how attached she is to them, and thinking to start things gently - "Why don't you start now? Just a half dozen or so?"

DD, in genuine horror "I can,t do that! They all have names and I can't break up couples! Rouge and Windrider are married and have a kid! I can't break up families!!"

Somehow, I think we still have a long way to go.

I know this was awhile ago, but maybe it'll help her feel better. I'm 30, married, and a mother of 5 1/2 month old twins. When I got married and moved out of Mu parents house, a laundry bag full of stuffed animals came with me, and I still have them! They're in the spare bedroom closet for now, but I just couldn't part with them!

I'm the same age as you and I also have a collection of stuffed animals. I do occasionally go through and donate some of them, but the rule is that once they hit the donation bin, Mr. Muse is not allowed to "make them talk" under pain of having an apartment taken over by stuffed animals-- because I'd feel bad about getting rid of them, and so, they'd have to stay.

Well...the last time I was on holiday I brought her home another stuffie.I suppose that if I am enabling her, I can't really complain too loudly now can I?

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"I think her scattergun was only loaded with commas and full-stops, although some of them cuddled together for warmth and produced little baby colons and semi-colons." ~ Margo

My granddaughter is almost four and an avid Spiderman fan. She and her dad were playing Spiderman with granddaughter’s toys. Peter and Harry were arguing saying "Mary Jane is MINE; No, she's MINE," etc. My daughter got into the game, and g-daughter told her to play the part of Peter (portrayed by Woody from Toy Story). Daughter had Peter say, "I respect women's rights. Mary Jane, you are your own unique person, and you belong to nobody except yourself." So Son in law had Harry say, "So Mary Jane, who do you want to marry?" And G-daughter had Mary Jane reply, "I just want to sit here and read a book."

I bought my oldest daughter an easy reader Bible and it arrived yesterday. So last night, she took it to bed to read. This morning, I was asking her how she'd liked it. She was very excited and told me how much she loved it, and how, "And at the end of every story, it has fun games!" I was surprised, as I hadn't noticed anything like that. "Games?" "Yeah! It has this fun game where you try to answer questions!" Ahhh. Apparently she is a big fan of comprehension questions. She's been following us around all morning asking us questions like she's a game show host.

The other day I was washing dishes and I had to go downstairs to get a dishrag to dry them. I'm far enough along in my pregnancy to make stairs exhaustingly difficult, so I was sitting on the landing, taking a break when 3yo DS walked up to me. He sat right down next to me and said "Momma, let's have a chat." This is how it went:

Me: Ok, what would you like to chat about?DS: I love playing in my ball pit, and you just love doing dishes.Me: Why do you say that?DS: *In an exasperated tone* Sigh, because everyday I play in my ball pit, and everyday you do dishes.

Then, last night when I was getting ready to go to the grocery store:DS: Momma, where are you going?Me: I'm going to go, go, go, go, on an adventure (Cat in the Hat theme song)DS: Hey, come back here. You didn't do your chores.Me: Excuse me? (Icy Mom voice)DS: You just need to clean my room.Me: I most certainly do not. I didn't get those toys out, I didn't pull your books off the shelf, and I didn't throw your blanket on the ground. Why on earth would I pick up your mess?DS: *Sigh* because you just love me MommyMe: (trying not to smile) I do love you baby, but you need to clean your room.DS: But Daddy doesn't clean his room.

Oh, and he will randomly walk up with a laundry basket on his head and say: "I am a robot dinosaur. Roar." in a robot voice. It's really cute, especially the roar, because he says the word roar in his robot voice as opposed to when he is a regular dinosaur and he just makes a roaring sound.

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In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

We were driving to Chicago. Jenny, my 3-year-old, asked, "Mommy, do they have potties in Chicago?" I laughingly told her they did. She said, "Good, because I'm going to have to go to the bathroom soon." My husband then asked her, "Jenny, what would you do if they *didn't* have potties in Chicago?" Jenny: "Starve!"

I got out the carseats (and the double snap-on stroller frame for them) for our expected twins last week and put it in the kitchen. My 5yo daughter, E, and 7yo son, M, got some stuffed toys to play house with and spent some time pretending they were taking their twins to the park, out to eat at McDonald's...basically all stuff they can do while walking around our neighborhood.

At one point they got into a little argument and I tuned in to what they were saying.

M: "You can't be 37 if I'm 35, don't you know the man is ALWAYS older?"Me: "Hey Son, did you know my grandma was four years older than my grandpa?"M: "How was that allowed?"Me: "You can marry who you want, you know. It doesn't have to be someone of a certain age."E: "What was your grandma's name?"Me: "Grandma Maidenname."E: "Okay, M, I'm going to be Grandma Maidenname and YOU be Grandpa Maidenname."

Emily and I have this running joke where she has a bunch of baby elephants. I'll ask her how they're doing, or whether she's fed them that day, stuff like that. So, today while I was fixing lunch:

Me: "Emily, can I borrow one of your baby elephants so I can have an elephant burger for lunch?" Emily: "Yes, but you can't chop him up or kill him." Me: "Then how am I supposed to make an elephant burger?" Her: "You just put a piece of bread on his head, then another piece on his butt, and you eat the bread and let the elephant go." Me: "So, basically, you're just eating bread with elephant dirt on it." Her: "Yep. And elephant poop." Me: "Ewww." Her: "People don't like it, but it's totally worth it."

We were all in the car today when a collection of American folk songs came on the radio, including "On Top of Old Smokey." DH and I were discussing how the only words for it we knew were the "On Top of Spaghetti!" version when Babybartfast1 piped up from the backseat:

BBF1: We sing that song!Me: In school?BBF1: Yeah!Me: Which words do you sing?BBF1: All of them!

(For the record, she's still in preschool so I highly doubt she actually knows the song!)

Today Baby and I came home from the hospital (yay! ) It is very typical for ladies in our church to bring dinner to families who have new babies, and sure enough, someone brought us dinner for tonight. DH and I taught a children's Sunday school class, and she comes and visits with me most months, so she brought her daughter with her to drop off dinner and a small gift for the baby. I was very appreciative, and I thought the outfit was really cute. That's when her daughter (age 6/7) piped up:

Daughter: We got it at GoodwillMom: I usually wouldn't, but it looked new (looking slightly embarrassed)Me:to daughter-- Oh, we love that store, DS calls it the "Treasure hunt store" to mom--That's so sweet of you, thank you......continuing conversationDaughter: Mom, the shirt still has a tag on itMom: (looking embarrassed again) Oh, give me thatMe to daughter: wow, good job catching that. Hey, I like your new braces.Daughter: Looking pleases with herself-- It was 50% off

I was trying not to laugh, as this poor woman sat on my couch looking mortified. So I ended up confessing that most of Baby's clothes are handed down from DS, or consignment, and started talking about a great semi-annual consignment event that I love.

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In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz